I caught this morning morning's minion, king-dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

Notes by Thor: Some people consider themselves to be “spiritual”. What does this really mean?

1. Words in natural language mean what you want them to mean. If you can find another person to share your meaning with, you can have a conversation.

2. Some words are extremely promiscuous and unfaithful: they will broker conversations within many different circles of people, and change their colour to suite the fellowship of the moment. “Spiritual” is one of these promiscuous words. To know the meaning of “spiritual” at any given moment, you have to look carefully at the company it is keeping at that moment.

[The ambiguous and changeable qualities of natural language are extremely valuable, allowing communication across time and in situations where the rigidities of, say, a formal computer language would paralyze interaction. The cost however is often some confusion and wasted time from misunderstanding.]

3. The references accompanying these notes show various interpretations for “spiritual”, and also show that its more popular modern meanings have separated the term from traditional religions, especially Christianity. However many Christians adhere to meanings for “spiritual” negotiated within their own faith, and refuse to acknowledge non-religious, “false” meanings.

4. Historically, most organized religions have developed schisms over the centuries which favour either a spiritual/mystical relationship with god(s), or a more legalistic/textual/”rational” relationship. Ultimately this schism seems to be a property of different psychological preferences or personality types which divide us all.

5. Modern urban communities, especially the middle classes, have developed groups of people who see themselves as “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR). A large section of the meetups on meetup.com are SBNR. This sub-population descends closely from similar personality types already mentioned in organized religion. My impression is that more women than men are attracted to SBNR groups. “Spiritual” in most SBNR communities seems to be a fairly diffuse notion developed in opposition to the rigidities of formal religion, but sharing the notion that there is something magical and mysterious out there which we will never understand. It apparently impacts on human well-being, and can be influenced to favour the well-being of particular individuals if they behave appropriately. This sense of spirituality is not unrelated to the intense cultivation of “luck” which I encountered in Chinese culture when I lived there.

6. My personal meaning code for “spiritual” is not a religious one, but would probably not square well with many SBNR people either. In the religious pantheon, I am agnostic, or non-dogmatic atheist. I am pretty sure of my own moral value code and see no need to attach it to any religion. (In fact religious claims on morality have always seemed to me to purely opportunistic grabs for social control, unrelated by a shred of credible evidence to any arguments for the existence of god(s). Obviously this interpretation is not going to persuade the faithful however).

7. “Spiritual” for me refers to that which inspires awe and wonder, especially in nature, but where no known human explanation is available. To assign a supernatural “explanation” to this seems me to be a cop out of the same low grade as all magic, voodoo and the rest. I’m cool with not yet being to explain a great deal. It sets up a fascinating challenge to search for (genuine) explanation. We have a limited set of biological senses to become aware of and decode the world we encounter. Given these limitations, it would be astonishing if much was NOT beyond our perception and understanding.

Scientific methods have made great progress in enabling us to interpret a lot by deduction and induction applied to careful observation. Much still remains beyond even our indirect interpretations using scientific method. Parts of the unreachable may always be unreachable. Parts of the unreachable may occasionally, through hidden chains of causation, lead us to perceive astonishing and “unexplainable” things with our limited human sensory apparatus. Call that spiritual if you like. It needs no fake explanations of gods, fairies, spirits, devils, leprechauns and all the rest. Fairy tales are fun, but I prefer to keep “spiritual” for real occasions of awe and wonder.